Shocker: LPFMs have little or no impact on commercial FMs

The long awaited report, required by the NAB as a part of the Local Community Radio Act has concluded that LPFMs have little or no impact on commercial FM stations. No kidding?

The executive summary states that:

LPFM stations serve primarily small and rural markets and have geographic and population reaches that are many magnitudes smaller than those of full-service commercial FM stations. In addition, LPFM stations generally have not been in operation as long as full-service commercial FM stations, have less of an Internet presence, and offer different programming formats. We also found that the average LPFM station located in an Arbitron Radio Metro Market (“Arbitron Metro”) has negligible ratings by all available measures and has an audience size that lags far behind those of most full-service stations in the same market.

Followed by:

Although each of the stations differs considerably in its individual characteristics, the results of the case studies show that the selected LPFM stations generally broadcast a variety of programming continuously throughout the day, operate with very small budgets, rely on mostly part-time and volunteer staff, do not have measurable ratings, have limited population reach, and do not generate significant underwriting earnings. All but one of the station managers that we interviewed stated that the LPFM station is not competing directly for listeners with any specific full-service stations.

And:

We conclude that, given their regulatory and operational constraints, LPFM stations are unlikely to have more than a negligible economic impact on full-service commercial FM stations.

2 thoughts on “Shocker: LPFMs have little or no impact on commercial FMs”

Why would LPFM have any affect at all on more powerful commercial full service stations? Not really sure if they were low power or not since I have only lived in Bluffton,In. for just a little over three years,but we lost our community radio station WNUY 100.1 FM recently!
Some other organization bought the station,and it is no longer here,…now based out of Ft. Wayne,In. last I knew.
It would be nice to once again have a station here in Bluffton,even if it only ran maybe 300 watts by day,and 150 watts at night on low power.

Under a different administration, those LPFM findings would never have seen the light of day. Everyone knows LPFM is killing commercial radio, just like LPTV destroyed commercial television — both as NAB predicted.